Gilded Cage: A Russian Mafia Romance (Kovalyov Bratva Book 1) by Nicole Fox (free novel 24 .txt) 📗

and realize that we don’t have any. I check around for Artem, realizing that I haven’t seen him in a bit.

No sign outside, either.

I’m on the verge of panicking when I hear footsteps coming up from a steep slope directly in front of the cabin.

“Artem?” I call nervously.

He steps into view and gives me a broad smile.

“Where did you go?” I ask. “I thought you’d finished scouting the area.”

“I did,” he nods. “Which is how I found the perfect little spot for us to have our dinner tonight.”

I frown, walking closer to him.

And that’s when I see it: there’s a narrow footpath that leads down the slope towards a flat surface that almost looks like a lookout point.

I realize that Artem’s taken the porch table and both chairs down there and set up a little outdoor dining area for the two of us.

“Wow,” I breathe.

“You like it?”

“It’ll do,” I tease. “I’ll bring the frying pan down.”

“The frying pan?” Artem asks, with confusion.

“Oh… well we don’t have plates,” I explain. “So we’ll just have to eat out of the frying pan.”

He laughs. “I guess there’s still a lot we need to stock up on, huh?”

“We might need a fridge at some point, too,” I tell him. “That is, if you want a little more variety in your meals. And if you wanna, you know, avoid salmonella.”

He laughs. “You get the frying pan and I’ll get the drinks?”

“Sounds good.”

Ten minutes later, we’re sitting at the table looking out over the most amazing mountain I’ve ever seen up close.

“This looks good,” Artem says, gesturing to the pasta.

“Why don’t you taste it first?” I say nervously.

We sit opposite each other and take the forks I’ve placed against the pan. His eyes are on me as he lifts a spiral of pasta into his mouth.

He chews thoughtfully for a moment and smiles.

“You can cook,” he decides.

“You think?”

“My tastebuds aren’t lying.”

I smile. “I used to enjoy cooking when I was younger,” I admit. “I’d steal into the kitchen at night and experiment. Then I’d take whatever I made back up to—”

I stop short, just before Cesar’s name slips out of my mouth. I’m the one who insisted that I should be free to talk about my brother when I want to.

But for some reason, I’m hesitant to do it now.

Artem and I have been getting along so well lately and a part of me doesn’t want to spoil it by bringing up Cesar.

Another part of me is terrified of hearing what else is lurking in Artem’s memory where my brother is concerned.

“Back up where?”

“Uh, my room,” I finish. “I’d take it back up to my room and eat it by the window.”

Artem’s smile comes a second too late. It’s clear he knows I didn’t finish my sentence the way I had initially intended.

I reach for the soda Artem bought for us and take a sip to avoid his eyes.

“It’s so beautiful,” I mumble, looking out at the mountain peaks.

“It really is,” Artem nods. “But you are still the most beautiful thing here.”

I feel a blush rush up my cheeks. But, try as I might, I can’t seem to push it back.

The night sky darkens as we sit and eat. I feel more at peace than I have in a while.

After we finish eating, Artem and I walk to the edge of the slope where a large boulder forms a natural love seat facing the mountain range.

Artem sits down and tucks me under his arm so that we can enjoy the view. There’s nothing but the whistling wind and the sound of crickets in the air, but all I care to hear is Artem’s breathing.

He looks down at me, his dark eyes are cloudy with thought.

“I can see why your brother used to come up here,” Artem says, and I freeze at the mention of Cesar.

But I don’t detect any animosity in Artem’s tone this time.

“It was difficult for him to adjust to life in the business,” I confide. “I think this cabin was somewhere he could come and just be himself.”

He nods. “Did he tell you that? That it was hard adjusting to life in the cartel?”

I glance at him, trying to decipher what that question meant. “Yes,” I answer. “He was a little older than you when Papa started grooming him. He started to change.”

“How did he change?” Artem asks.

I realize that we’ve now fallen into a fully-fledged conversation about Cesar and I feel my heartbeat pick up a little.

“Little ways,” I reply. “It was a look in his eyes more than anything, like he’d seen too much of the world to be hopeful or optimistic. His smile became sad. He started talking a lot about death…”

I trail off remembering little snippets of conversations that I’d long since pushed into the recesses of my memory.

“He loved the beach,” I continue. “But after Papa started his training, I started to feel like a part of him needed the ocean. He used to go there every chance he got. Sometimes, he’d wake up in the middle of the night and go for a run.”

An old memory resurfaces. I had been a teenager and Cesar had been in the family business for years at that point.

“Cesar?”

“Little bird. What are you doing up so late?”

“What are you doing up so late?” I counter.

“I went for a run.”

“It’s three in the morning.”

“I needed to clear my head.”

“What’s in your head?”

“Monsters, little Esme.”

I pause, trying to see his features past the darkness. He looks like my brother and yet sometimes, I look at his face and see a stranger staring back at me.

“Does the running help get rid of the monsters?” I ask.

“No, nothing can do that,” Cesar replies. “But for a little while at least, I manage to outrun them.”

“You talk in riddles now. You do realize that, right?” I tell him.

He smiles. “No, I don’t,” he says. “You just don’t understand me yet.”

I frown. “I’m not a child anymore. I’m thirteen.”

“Stop trying to grow up so fast,” he says